IMAGE: ALAMY


EAT


A TASTE OF Barbados


COCKTAIL KITCHEN, ST LAWRENCE GAP Offering a contemporary take on Caribbean cuisine, this is one of the hottest tables on the island, run by one its coolest chefs, Damian Leach. Be sure to try his signature dish: smoky, fire-roasted breadfruit topped with lobster, tobiko (flying fish roe), hot pepper sauce and aioli. Other highlights include seacat (octopus) and shrimp ceviche, and flying fish tacos. Inside, it’s all tongue and groove and vibrant, modern artworks. Bar staff mix signature cocktails such as the Canela 22 (local rum, cinnamon syrup, cherry liquor and citrus) for a hip, young crowd. From 46 BBD (£18). ckbarbados.com


CUZ’S FISH SHACK, HASTINGS This legendary takeaway joint is located on the beach near the Hilton Barbados Resort hotel. Grab a ‘cutter’ and tuck into it sitting on the sand. The famous sandwich consists of a crusty roll stuffed with crispy fried fish doused in pink pepper sauce, with or without cheese. From 12 BBD (£5).


PAT’S PLACE, OISTINS This is one of the most popular beachfront shacks on the island; head here for the Friday ‘fish fry’ and choose from a menu that might include flying fish, mahi-mahi, swordfish and red snapper. The fish is served with rice and peas, sweet potato, roasted breadfruit or macaroni pie. Grab a seat at a wooden table outside, among the cluster of waterfront eateries just off the main drag, and wash it all down with a chilled Banks beer. From 30 BBD (£12)


Pat’s Place in Oistins, which


hosts one of the biggest fish fries on the island


Fish is also the focus each weekend when


normally sleepy fishing villages swell with locals and visitors for legendary Friday ‘fish fries’. Mahi-mahi, tuna, marlin, swordfish and flying fish are tossed on barbecues, the beer flows and the weekend begins. That night, I head to one of the biggest, in Oistins on the southwest coast. Lights twinkle at the stalls along the waterfront, music thumps and people mill around and play dominoes at rustic tables. Huge, smoking grills sizzle. I grab a plate piled high with flying fish, rice and peas, macaroni pie and salad — it’s a mammoth feed, not fancy but filling in true Bajan style. The next morning, I’ve booked a taxi to take


me to the less-trampled parts of the island, but a fish market is my first stop. You can’t beat a taxi driver’s know-how and Marlon Webb is the ideal guide to Bridgetown’s fish market, on the edge of town. We wander the sluiced concrete alleys between the stalls, chatting to the fishmongers filleting red snapper and preparing swordfish and lobster. I quiz Marlon on cou-cou and flying fish, the island’s national dish. “We usually eat it fried but the best I’ve tasted was roasted on a beach straight from the sea. It’s also good rolled and seasoned in a broth,” he says. Our next stop is more low key, a tiny market


on the beach at Pile Bay, on the outskirts of the capital. As we arrive, a small boat approaches the shore and two men — one clad in a wetsuit — jump out onto the sand. Ian Watt, a spear fisherman, tells us he’s been out since 5am, diving to around 100ft for parrot chub. “I give


thanks if I go out with nothing and come back with something,” he says. The ‘something’ he shows me is shimmering and rainbow-hued. Continuing north up the west coast,


along a road lined with sugarcane fields, the settlements get smaller. Once the mainstay of the island’s economy, sugar replaced tobacco as the main crop on the island after the market price for the latter plummeted in the 1640s. By the 18th century, there were more than 600 sugarcane plantations here, worked by enslaved people from Africa, with most of the sugar shipped to Europe. Today, there are just two sugar factories left and four rum distilleries. Mount Gay, in the remote rural parish of St


Lucy, dates to 1703 and is the world’s oldest rum distillery. It’s a sprawling complex of warehouses surrounded by fields. Rum, I learn, as we follow our guide, Tina Forde, from the spring to the fermenting room, is just water, molasses and yeast — nothing else. After we peer into the huge vats of gooey


molasses, trail past giant oak fermenters and copper pit stills, and meander through the dimly lit bond houses containing barrels, Tina hands us over to Ria Cox in the tasting room. “Don’t swirl the rum, that agitates the alcohol. You don’t want to make it angry,” she says, rum memorabilia on the exposed stone walls behind her. “On the nose, there’s vanilla, banana, cinnamon, nutmeg.” We next sip a rum that’s been aged in whisky, bourbon and cognac barrels. It’s dark, deeper, smoother. “It’s baked goods. And grandma’s Christmas,” says Ria.


JUNE 2023 53


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